Originally, the station had the call sign KAUN and it was the local Pax TV affiliate, while The WB was carried on a cable-only channel known by the fictitious call sign KWJB. On October 1, 2003, channel 36 acquired the WB affiliation and it became KWSD, and Pax TV was moved to then-sister station KAUN-LP. The programming on KWSD was provided by The WB 100+ Station Group, a predecessor to The CW Plus. In September 2006, The WB and UPN merged to become The CW. KWSD became the CW affiliate for Sioux Falls, and UPN affiliate "UTV", a digital subchannel of KELO-TV, became an affiliate of MyNetworkTV.
At one point in the past decade, KWSD/KAUN had a 9 p.m. newscast that served the Sioux Falls Metro Area and the KWSD viewing area. That newscast was pulled, and reports were that there were plans in the works to bring back a 9 p.m. newscast to the Sioux Falls market.
KWSD's CW affiliation ended on September 10, 2012; at that time, the affiliation moved to a subchannel of KSFY-TV.[3] KWSD switched its affiliation to MeTV on that date.[4] As of September 2015, the MeTV affiliation also moved to KSFY, on their third subchannel; KWSD then became a Retro TV affiliate.
As of June 2020, KWSD ended its affiliation with Retro TV and affiliated with YTA TV, solely to keep its cable positions and broadcasting license active in anticipation of a sale partner, with little local programming otherwise.
On November 23, 2022, it was reported that Fargo, North Dakota–based Forum Communications Company would purchase KWSD and sister station KCWS-LD from Jim Simpson, then-owner of KNBN and KWBH-LD in Rapid City, for $1.4 million;[5] the sale was completed on February 21, 2023.[6] Forum intends to create a third television news operation in the Sioux Falls market.[1]
On February 24, 2023, the station changed its call sign to KSFL-TV; several weeks later, it switched its affiliation to Ion Television and upgraded to high-definition operations for the first time since its departure from The CW. On January 1, 2024, KSFL dropped Ion and became an independent station.
KSFL-TV (as KWSD) shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 36, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 51 to channel 36 for post-transition operations.[8]
